


The Prophecy

by cazflibs



Series: The Ace Chronicles [8]
Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-30
Updated: 2010-03-30
Packaged: 2017-10-08 12:38:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/75734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cazflibs/pseuds/cazflibs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set two years after 'Rimmer's Return' and a year after 'Back to Earth'. When the Dwarfers visit a Blerion trading post, they hear prophecies and truths that will change everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Prophecy

It had been over a year since they'd gone back to Earth.

Fourteen long months since Kryten had revealed the truth that Kochanski was, in fact, alive. 61 weeks of searching relentlessly for her; trekking across planetoids, exploring abandoned derelicts and hailing potentially dangerous GELF ships they'd have otherwise steered clear of, just to get information as to her whereabouts. All to no avail.

427 days putting up with Lister's ever-increasing concern, as his once-chirpy optimism drew back to reveal the desperation and misery that the years stuck in deep space had carved out deep inside.

Day 428 on _Starbug _had started much like any other. Rimmer had fired up the red alert bulb to warn the others of an approaching alien war fleet. Lister had called him a pedantic git as they were only sitting a few feet away. In the resulting argument, wherein Rimmer and Lister threw biting insults back and forth at one another, the Cat fired up the thrusters to cut over the din a little too forcefully. The gyro, already barely held in place with sellotape and blu-tack, blasted loose and sent _Starbug_ into a shaking barrel roll.

A visit to the nearby Blerion GELF trading post to seek a replacement was inevitable.

Emerging on the desert planetoid with unsteady footsteps, the four crewmembers looked a little worse for wear. Hair mussed and clothing rumpled after a landing as graceful as a hippo on rollerskates, tempers were understandably wearing thin.

"So what you're trying to tell me," Rimmer rounded on the mechanoid, trying to bite back the venom, "is that the alien war fleet I witnessed on the scanner was in fact the splattered remains of Lister's dinner last night?"

Kryten nodded eagerly, missing the warning signs. "Vindaloo stains are tricky characters to remove, as you can imagine, sir. I'm completely out of Windolene. Hopefully we can pick some up from the market whilst we're here. The Blerions are amazing tradespeople in rare and hard-to-find goods. Their range of Swarfega products and - "

"Kryten, beyond Lister's god-awful guitar playing, I can't think of anything I'm less interested in listening to than your obsession with cleaning products," Rimmer sighed impatiently. "Can we just get this shopping trip over and done with?"

The market was heaving. GELFs of all shapes, sizes and species jostled between stalls, the humid air thick with deals and barters in unfamiliar languages.

Lister rallied the group together with a wave of the arm. "Stick together, guys," he asserted. "Keep 'em peeled for decent gyro gear, no crap. Give a whistle if you see anything and we'll let Kryten do the bartering."

And with a mutual nod they set off, weaving through the crowds and eyeing up the various goods and products for the precious gyro they needed.

Rimmer skulked at the back of the group. This is what happened when you let a narcissistic, over-grown house pet pilot a JMC spacecraft. Now they were stuck on a trading post in the middle of nowhere, where humanoids were about as popular as a rowdy, drunken stag party at the Royal Ballet's Covent Garden performance of Swan Lake -

Rimmer stopped himself mid-flow. Were they - ?

Pushing past a couple of GELFs at the stall to his right, his eyes lit up as he clocked the two treasures lying silently on the table of trinkets. A pair of near mint condition figurines of Napoleon's Armee du Nords.

If he'd had a heart it would have been thumping in his chest. These were worth a fortune back on Io, but stuck out in deep space, to him they were priceless. He picked them up with shaking hands.

"Wowza." Rimmer glanced up with gleeful enthusiasm. "Hey chaps, have you seen these - ?"

He froze. The others were no longer there. His dark, hazel eyes scanned the milling crowds as his panic rose. They were nowhere to be seen.

Replacing the figurines back onto the stall, Rimmer staggered out into the crowd. He offered repeated mumbled apologies as he was jostled from side to side by various GELFs and dolochimps who shoved past him impatiently, recoiling in their glares of contempt.

"Lister?" he called out with a squeak.

"Oi, smeghead!" Then a piercing whistle.

Rimmer's head whipped round to see Lister standing in the side alley across the market to his left. Rimmer scowled as his companion indicated with a jerk of the head to follow, but squeezed out of the claustrophobia of the market crowds and trotted after him thankfully. He'd always hated visiting such dangerously unfamiliar worlds, which never left him in the best of moods.

"Why didn't you tell me you'd moved on?" Rimmer called haughtily after Lister's retreating form. "You could have at least - hey wait!" he shifted into a higher gear to try and keep up with him.

Lister was certainly in a hurry to catch up with the others. Striding further and further into the maze of back alleys, the sounds of the heaving market began to fade at the edges. Rimmer glanced behind him, a chill running up his spine as his ears caught on to hushed footsteps he could swear blind were following them.

"Where are we going?" he asked warily, wrapping his arms around himself. "Have you found someone who'll do us a deal on the gyro?"

"No," Lister replied simply as he stopped in the cool shadows of the alley. "But I certainly found what I came here for."

Rimmer froze at the unfamiliar voice as Lister turned back to face him with equally unfamiliar violet eyes.

"Long time no see, Ace Rimmer," he grinned wickedly.

Rimmer's light bee lanced with pain as a white-hot shot fired into his back. Stunned, he crumpled to the floor with a moan and blacked out.

******

"But it's so pretty, bud!" the Cat protested, proffering forth the turquoise-blue, silk scarf for Lister's inspection.

"No way."

"_Buddy_," he insisted, tying it delicately around his slender neck and flicking the tie ends with a flourish.

"Cat, I said no," Lister sighed, eyes rolling. He was forever sounding like an old mother hen nowadays.

The GELF stall-holder held up a mirror for Cat's inspection. "Lutya mulhay kanta," he encouraged with a winning nod.

Lister thrust a turmeric-stained finger at the GELF. "And you can stop encouraging him." He rounded on his feline companion. "Cat, we can't afford to buy Blerion silk. The money from that would feed and water us for two months."

The Cat turned this way and that, his gaze locked with the gorgeous visage before him. "Man, with a scarf this gorgeous I could live without eating and drinking." He turned back to Lister with a toothy grin. "Now, give me one good reason why I can't get it."

Lister wiggled his fingers angrily, fighting to keep calm. "I'll give you five in a minute," he grumbled under his breath before letting forth an exasperated sigh. "Rimmer, can't you tell him?"

No reply came.

Lister's brow furrowed as he swivelled round to take in the market. "Rimmer?" he called out into the heaving streams of traders and buyers.

******

Before Rimmer had even opened his eyes, he caught onto what sounded like a hushed, yet heated argument.

"Kento muhata khakhak leto."

"I don't care about your crappy, meaningless promises. I've already paid you good money to - "

"Mekhat teena sola!"

"Then where the hell is this promised rendezvous pick-up then? You said they'd be here twenty minutes ago! We need to get him out of here now!"

Rimmer wrenched his eyes reluctantly open, finding that reality proved to be similarly dark. He was lying on his front in the dust, his hands shackled tightly behind his back. He glanced up awkwardly. He was in a small, sandstone warehouse or storage room of some description, his two captors standing at the door, glancing out anxiously into the light. 

Rimmer strained his eyes to focus. One was a huge, seven-foot GELF with dark red matted fur coating his body and features. The other was a female figure -- or at least she looked female, it was hard to tell. She seemed to be just a shadow and nothing more; her smooth black body lightly patterned with matrix-etchings. Most likely a symbi-morph.

As Rimmer attempted to wriggle himself upright with a weak groan, the pair whipped back to face him.

"Great, now he's awake!" the symbi-morph sighed, her voice edged with concern. "Don't let him escape. Do your bloody job."

The GELF raced over and shoved him back down hard into the dust.

"Ow! What the smegging - ?"

Rimmer felt a gun pressed to his temple and promptly decided perhaps lying still was the best option for now.

"Kutnay halta mohat!" the GELF growled in his ear.

Rimmer recoiled at the horrific blast of halitosis that assaulted his nostrils; a stench worse than Lister's morning breath after he'd had a night of quaffing Chicken Balti and a six-pack of lager.

"I-I don't know who you people are," he began as resolutely as his quivering voice would allow. "But I'll have you know I'll be writing a stern letter of complaint to the management of this colony for such inhuman treatment."

The symbi-morph sniffed in amusement as she slinked over towards them. "Sorry for the rough treatment, but the hired goon is a necessity for my own protection, I'm afraid." She crouched down to join him in the dust, her violet eyes twinkling as she smiled. "After all, last time we met, you did promise to kill me after my, shall we say, rather unsporting baiting."

Rimmer blinked twice. "What?"

"I know how much you like to hold a grudge. I wouldn't dare turn my back on you nowadays." The symbi-morph regarded him darkly. "I doubt that anyone would cross you now after you finished off Pizzak and the others like that. I'm glad I bailed out of there when I did."

Silence. "Again, what?"

She rolled her eyes. "Oh come on, Ace my darling, modesty was never your forte."

Rimmer's face fell. "Ace?" He tried to swallow but his throat was suddenly dry. "You think I'm Ace?"

Noticing her jerk of the head, the GELF reluctantly followed the silent order to release Rimmer from his pinned position on the floor. The symbi-morph hauled him up to his knees. 

"You can cut the crap, Ace, it won't wash with me," she replied in a clipped tone, her patience clearly wearing thin. "Everyone knows you went into hiding after it happened, but I know you. I could find you with my eyes closed." A wicked smile inched across her face. "And there's some folks who are very interested in seeing you again."

His panic rising, Rimmer shook his head desperately. This was definitely Not Good. "No wait, y-you don't understand. I know I look like him, but I'm not him, I swear."

"Bantwa lati forma?" the GELF demanded.

"Of course it's him! The hologram's signal is an exact match," the symbi-morph snapped back. "Just concentrate on the reward money, okay? It's not your concern."

"Reward?" Rimmer mumbled.

The symbi-morph turned her attention back to him, her smile returning. "Of course. There's a rather large sum on offer to whoever turns you in." 

Her lips pouted mockingly at the horrified look on Rimmer's face as she ran her long, slender fingers curiously through the curls of his hair. "I'm sorry, it's nothing personal." She shrugged, chillingly nonchalant. "But with a bounty that large, I'd cash in my own mother."

Rimmer's mind raced, his thoughts scrabbling for an escape plan. If she really thought he was Ace, and she clearly knew him from her level of intimacy, surely he could play up to the pretence and play upon his deadly reputation? He snorted in a manner he hoped sounded like a nonchalant space hero, but which probably made him sound more like a warthog with a chronic catarrh problem.

"Well then, if I'm really Ace Rimmer," he began, feebly attempting to replicate the suave, smooth tones of his alter ego. "You ought to know that I'm not the sort of chap to mess with." He flicked his non-existent fringe, throwing out the bluff with as much skill and grace as his attempts at bowling in his cricket lessons back at Io House.

Unfortunately, the symbi-morph knocked him for six with a raised eyebrow. "Hence the large price tag, I'm sure."

Rimmer's face sagged quickly. That particular tack had crashed and burned. His brain fumbled for another get-out clause with the grating of gears. "Please, whoever you are," he pleaded, trying to dredge up his Winning Smile that unfortunately hadn't been dusted off and put on show for a long time. "I'm sure we can come to some kind of arrangement, surely?"

The symbi-morph chuckled seductively as she closed the gap between them, snaring him in a meaningful gaze. "You were always so romantic," she uttered sarcastically.

The Winning Smile retreated as he fought to free himself from the sparkle in her violet eyes. "Oh no, I-I didn't mean - "

Rimmer was cut short as the symbi-morph pressed her lips to his in a passionate kiss. It was intoxicating, like nothing else he'd ever experienced before. True, his experience was rather limited in the female department, but he'd never recalled feeling quite so overwhelmed and lost.

The symbi-morph froze suddenly as if she'd only just noticed something. Almost afraid, she slowly pulled away, revealing the vacant half-grin she'd left plastered to Rimmer's face.

His eyebrow twitched absently. "On second thoughts - "

But the symbi-moprh didn't seem to be in the mood for jokes. Even when she tried to force a disbelieving laugh that spluttered and died on her lips.

"Lati hekmat," she whispered, her voice quivering. "You're not him, are you?"

There was an angry growl from the direction of the GELF, his trigger finger twitching. "Bantwa latmi - ?!"

The symbi-morph screwed her eyes closed. "No, no - it doesn't make sense," she muttered to herself desperately. "The signal on your projection is exactly the same, I recognise the psychic pulses in your mind - " She tailed off thoughtfully, her eyes locked with his. "Unless you're not him _anymore..._"

Rimmer's nose wrinkled in confusion. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"It's brilliant. Simply brilliant," he muttered to herself. "With nowhere safe out in the cosmos, you seek out the ultimate hiding spot. Inside your own head."

******

Lister pushed his way through the heavy stain drapes of the tent's entrance and glanced around. A small, female Blerion GELF looked up to meet his gaze, a dark grey hood covering her head.

"Sorry to disturb," he flashed a cheeky grin. "But did you see a tall, irritating smeghead in a blue uniform come by through here?"

The GELF stared at him, not uttering a word. The air was sweet with incense and the low flickering lights of candles.

Lister shook his head. This was pointless. The majority of GELFs on this Trading Post couldn't speak a word of English. "Never mind," he muttered as he turned away.

"Would you like a reading of your future? Only five nepli."

Lister swivelled back to her with a start. That was odd. "N-no I'm okay thanks," he declined cautiously. "I'm not really a believer in the whole psychic hocus pocus thing." He'd seen plenty of tourists get cheated out of money during his weekend trips to Southport all those hundreds of thousands of years ago. Dave Lister was no fool.

"You travel with a droid, a feline, and a spirit of the dead," the psychic replied quickly.

Lister folded his arms, unimpressed. "Which anybody with a pair of functioning eyes could have worked out from seeing us in the market earlier. We don't exactly fit in around here." He swept aside the curtain to leave. "Thanks anyway."

"You seek your lost love."

The curtain fell back into place with Lister still inside. He turned back to face her, astounded. "How on Earth did you - ?"

"The one you once thought dead is alive and waiting for you."

Lister tried to swallow. "Will I find her?"

A low smile stretched lazily across the psychic's face. She knew that she had snared his interest. "One day you will be reunited," she conceded. The GELF pinched her brow as a thought suddenly came to her. "And on that day," she said distantly, her dark pupils dilating, "he will return."

"Who will return?" Lister echoed, confused. The only person they'd lost was Kris.

The GELF was holding his gaze unsteadily, as if she could no longer see him. "He travels through time and space itself, reality bending to his will. He is not one man, but many. The whole is so much greater than the sum of its parts."

"Ace?!" He cried triumphantly. "You mean we'll find him out there too?" Lister felt a wave of excitement. His thoughts had often meandered down that path, wandering what had happened to his old cellmate. It had been almost two years since he'd carried on the flame.

But the GELF shook her head. "Not just out there. He's also in here," she tapped her temple with her forefinger. "Buried in the mind of the spirit that travels with you."

Lister suddenly felt sick. "But that's not possible - " he muttered, his voice barely a whisper. When Rimmer had returned two years previously, Wildfire's computer had warned him that his incarnation of Ace was dangerously unstable. They'd deleted his memory to protect himself and those around him. Surely?

"The forces at war will try and bring him back," the prophecy continued, the voice giving it life shaking with fear. "He must not be allowed to return," she warned, "or he'll be lost to the darkness and destroy everything and everyone in his path."

Lister simply stared back at her in shock, unable to speak. The air felt thick. He couldn't breathe.

Mumbling his excuses, he fumbled his way through the curtain, desperate to get out. As he raced out into the hot, muggy street once more, he barrelled clumsily into Kryten.

The mechanoid's plastic features contorted in concern when he realised how flustered his master looked. "Are you alright, sir?" he clucked.

"I-I'm fine, Krytie," he bluffed.

Kryten frowned as he read the Blerion script on the sign hung on the side of the tent. "Ignore their 'prophecies', sir," he tutted. "Nothing but a host of tricksters."

Lister nodded, although inside he was less convinced. "Right," he muttered vacantly.

****************

"It's not true."

"You were Ace."

"He offered me the chance - "

"And you grasped it with both hands!"

" - and I said no!" Rimmer replied emphatically.

The symbi-morph's excitement grew. "The people called you a hero. The simulants called you a murderer." She regarded him with hushed reverence. "You were magnificent."

Rimmer paused, shaken. "A murderer?" he asked, disbelieving, before shaking his head. "That doesn't sound magnificent to me at all."

The symbi-morph's face fell. "You really don't remember any of it, do you?" she pressed.

"Remember what?!"

She released an impatient sigh and turned to address the GELF over her shoulder. "We need him to remember," she hissed quietly. "Otherwise we can kiss the reward money goodbye."

"Bahatmi letna hatnu kesmat," the GELF growled dangerously as his trigger finger grew itchy. Rimmer shrunk back nervously. He didn't have to know the language to understand that he was not best pleased.

The symbi-moprh turned back hurriedly to face him. "Listen, you're going to have to trust me on this one, okay?" She grasped him by the shoulders, giving him a reassuring squeeze. "This may feel a bit intense, but you need to relax." Her long, slender fingers slid up to his temples and she closed her eyes in concentration. "I need to see for myself."

Rimmer's breath quickened, his eyes desperately trying to search hers. "See what? I don't - argh!"

His vision whited out as he felt her twitching and writhing through his electronic brain; his mind's eye pulsing with dredged up images and memories, half-forgotten.

_Flash_.

His three brothers chasing him down the corridors of his old childhood home, making fervent grabs at the back of his school jumper.

_Flash_.

His passionate fumble with Fiona Barrington in his father's greenhouse.

_Flash_.

His frustration at dangling precariously on the lowest rung of the Space Corps hierarchy for 12 long years.

_Flash_.

Gazpacho soup...

"Don't," he pleaded, the memory suddenly feeling as raw as the day it had happened. "No more, please."

"Stay with me. Don't push me out."

_Flash_.

Dying. He remembered dying.

"Please stop - " he whimpered.

_Flash_. His resurrection. _Flash_. His Inquisition.

_Flash_. His heroic alter ego...

"Argh!" Rimmer winced visibly as if she'd hit a raw nerve. He tried to pull back but the symbi-morph refused to retract the psychic link. "It hurts - " he gasped.

"What the hell is that?" she muttered to herself, concentrating her focus.

Rimmer whimpered again, feeling like his mind was on fire. "It hurts! Get out!"

"It's black. Hidden, yet alive and burning - "

Rimmer gritted his teeth in agony. His entire head felt like it was white-hot, ready to explode. "GET OUT!" he cried.

The symbi-morph reeled back with a start; breaking the link instantly as if she'd just been stung. The pair stared wide-eyed at one another, both panting visibly. Eventually the silence was broken.

"It's you," she nodded quietly, visibly shaken. "I know it's you, even if you don't know it yourself."

The symbi-morph shifted her gaze from Rimmer's glazed expression, exchanging bewildered glances with the GELF, before her eyes settled on the dusty floor.

"The deal's off," she conceded quietly.

"Hatway namta lekhi holpha heestan?" the GELF demanded, gesturing angrily towards the door.

"You really think we can turn him in like this?!" the symbi-moprh snapped back. "They'd never let us leave the ship alive, let alone pay us for the pleasure."

Rimmer remained silent but the gratitude was clear in his eyes. Relenting, the symbi-morph sighed.

"I guess after all these years of screwing you over, I at least owe you this one favour." She leaned in close, jabbing his chest with her forefinger. "You better remember this, Mr. Rimmer. After this, Juno has repaid you a hundred times over."

Rimmer nodded wordlessly.

Juno's face remained serious. "Because if you don't follow what I say, you're a dead man. As Ace, you could have kicked some serious arse, but as this?" She ran her deep violet eyes over Rimmer's body and shook her head despairingly. "You're history if they catch you."

Rimmer's chest tightened. "If who catch me?"

"The holograms. Like I said, they're offering a hefty reward for your capture."

Rimmer glanced back and forth between the GELF and Juno. "B-but I'm a hologram too. Why would they want me captured?"

"Because they want a murderer, Mr. Rimmer. A man who can help them slaughter the simulant race."

Rimmer shook his head. "No. They wouldn't - "

"When holograms lost their human lives, they shed their human qualities," Juno cut in quickly. "When you're immortal you lose interest in questioning your limits or exercising mercy. You do what you need to do to survive. To make yourself great."

Rimmer's face hardened. "We're not like that."

"Oh, but you are." Ignoring his protests, Juno leaned in close enough to whisper in his ear. "Which is why even you shed your old life to become someone great."

******

The once-fierce sunshine was slowly dying; the light gradually drawing back from the market and retreating into shadow. Buyers were haggling over last-minute bargains, and the odd stall-holder could be found packing up their boxes and closing trade for another day.

Lister shielded his eyes against the orange eerie glow of the sunset, squinting to make out a tall figure emerging from the alley to their right and wandering aimlessly back into the milling crowds of the square. With a growing scowl, he led the exhausted trio towards him.

"Rimmer, man, where the smeg have you been?" he chided, his gloved hands thrust impatiently on his hips. "We've been trawling the market for two hours looking for you."

Rimmer blinked unsteadily as he surveyed the group, as if he hadn't quite registered the question. "I was snatched from the alley," he mumbled, his brow furrowing distantly. "But they let me go."

"Great!" cried the Cat. "So we were rushing around looking for Goalpost Head and getting my hair all mussed up for no reason?" He grumbled to himself, pulling out his emergency comb and setting to work on the imperceptible misplaced strands of his otherwise immaculate coiffure.

Lister shook his head despairingly. "I'm guessing you either stole something or smegged someone off?" He paused thoughtfully. "My money's on the latter." 

Kryten's plastic features contorted as he mused. "Case of mistaken identity perhaps, sir?" he offered.

Lister shrugged defeatedly and with a tilt of the head, Kryten and the Cat turned to follow his slouching step through the market.

"Must have been," Rimmer snorted through cavernous nostrils as he strode to follow. "They kept insisting I used to be Ace."

The words stopped the group dead, forcing Rimmer to stop suddenly as three pairs of eyes darted back to face him.

"What did you say?" Lister asked carefully.

Rimmer's eyes flitted back and forth over the trio awkwardly. "Erm – they thought I was Ace?" he repeated uncertainly.

Lister quickly shook his head. "That's not what you said the first time," he mumbled nervously. "Which is it? Did these people think you _were _Ace or _used to be_ Ace?"

Flustered, Rimmer's mouth gaped open and closed like a robotic goldfish. "I-I don't know –"

"Rimmer, man, it's important!"

"Used to be! Okay? They thought I used to be Ace."

Lister exchanged nervous glances with Kryten before surveying the market crowds with growing concern. "Where are these people? What did they look like?"

Rimmer's stomach began to knot as he sensed Lister's unease. "A GELF uglier than sin and a nymphomaniac symbi-morph," he half-joked to try and break the tension. "I don't know where they went, they just disappeared." He frowned in suspicion. "Why?" he asked slowly. "Do you know what they were talking ab- ?"

"Did they say anything to you?" Lister urged desperately. When met with shocked silence, Lister grasped the hologram by the arms. "Rimmer, did they say anything to you?"

Rimmer blinked twice, surprised at the urgency in Lister's voice. "The symbi-morph told me that the holograms and simulants are at war," he recounted, "and they need Ace to be their main murder weapon. Apparently, there's a substantial reward for the person who brings him in alive."

"Who wants you – I mean – _him _alive? The simulants?"

Rimmer shook his head distantly. "The holograms."

Lister regarded him with a strange, distant look; the cogs in his mind turning almost audibly. After a few moments of contemplation, Lister's arms slipped back to his side as he shot Kryten a pointed look.

"Come on, guys. We're getting out of here," Lister announced shakily, straightening the leather deerstalker on his curls. "Kryten's already sorted the gyro so there's no reason to stick around. It's getting dark."

The Cat shook his head, jovially. "Yeah, but bud, what about the scarf - ?"

"I said, 'we're going'!" Lister snapped suddenly.

The toothy grin slipped instantly from the Cat's face at Lister's tone, the group staring after him as he turned away and began a purposeful stride back to the landing site. Kryten and the Cat exchanged glances before slowly trudging after him.

Rimmer hung back for a moment, a cold chill cutting through the humid air and running up his spine. A thought hit him with a rush that made him feel physically sick. A memory of his first death day, when Lister had altered his memory so that he was convinced he'd fallen in love with a girl he'd never met. It had all felt so real.

"Is it true?" he called out to Lister's back, his voice unsteady. "Was I him once?"

The trio slowed and stopped, Lister's shoulders heaving a sigh before turning back to face him.

"No, it's not true," he said eventually, his face unreadable. "But if these people think that you are, then it leaves us all in big trouble."

Rimmer's mouth tightened, offering him a small nod, which Lister echoed before turning back to lead the trio to the safety of Starbug.

Now stood alone in the market square, Rimmer glanced back to the alley. A still, silent figure leant against the sandstone wall, watching him intently.

An unfamiliar GELF with all-too familiar violet eyes.

Kryten shifted up a gear to fall in step with Lister's swift stride. He didn't speak, instead awaiting the capitulation from his human master that he knew to be inevitable.

"We can't let them find him, Krytie," he uttered quietly so that the Cat couldn't hear.

"No, sir," Kryten replied simply. He glanced across to Lister's ever-aging face – the worry creasing lines into his forehead. "What do you think we should do?" he asked gently.

Lister was torn by the psychic's words. The day he'd be reunited with his beloved Krissie would be the day that they'd be pulled into the hologram/simulant war. The day that Rimmer's dark and dangerous past would resurface once more; a side of him he'd hoped he'd never face again.

Lister's dark eyes met his.

"We run."


End file.
